At the moment, my main interest is with B/X D&D (in the form of Old-School Essentials). I was born too late to play it at the time (when I started, the current edition was AD&D 2nd), so I'm curious to go back to the beginnings of D&D.
It will take some time, though, until I run it, since I want to use it with Necrotic Gnome's Dolmenwood setting, which will probably arrive only later this year in book form.
Other than that, I am currently looking at a handful of OSR-titles (mainly Mörk Börg and Ultraviolet Grasslands), but I guess that would basically fall into the B/X category.
I'm designing my own retrowhatever, with the high premise of reimplementing AD&D's Player's Option series in BECMI. I'm looking at a lot of 3.5 and Pathfinder 3pp for inspiration-- Tipsy Tabby Publishing's Overhauling Multiclassing and Rogue Genius Games' Genius Guide to the Talented $CLASS series especially.
So I'll run Rules Cyclopedia or AD&D 2e Player's Option pretty happily... though 3.PF is still too much work... and I'll play any of the three under a flexible and generous DM.
I have a friend who only wants to run D&D 3.5 "Core Only"... she invites me to play, I express my enthusiasm, and then she says "Core Only". She doesn't understand why I immediately back out, and I don't understand why she doesn't say "Core Only" up front, and neither of us will ever learn.
Mine is going back to 3.5 reduce HP, redo monster math and add some 5e improvements -NeoVancian and advantage/bonus dice for buffs-. Also streamline things here and there.My pet project is advanced B/X with microfeats and 5Es skill system and bounded accuracy.
Any word on when 6th edition is coming out?6th edition with a better written Ranger and Sorcerer class. Maybe different answer if variant class features come to fruition.
Mine is going back to 3.5 reduce HP, redo monster math and add some 5e improvements -NeoVancian and advantage/bonus dice for buffs-. Also streamline things here and there.
My FAVORITE edition is 1e.
What I'm currently playing/DMing is 5e & PF2.
My order of preference playwise is:
1e, 5e, PF1/3x, PF2, 2e, BECMI (includes Moldvay, Cyclopedia, Holmes)
OD&D & 4e (including 4e essentials) are only of abstract interest to me.
●OD&D - as a piece of history,
●4e - only to occasionally tease a 4e fan to see if I can get a rise out of them. They rarely dissapoint.![]()
4e and Moldvay B/X, while possibly opposite ends of the spectrum, but both were probably the clearest of their design purpose and focus.
I agree about what u say 3.5 needed.Well said.
I love these editions because they're very anti-Gygax: They're clear. They're focussed. They make sense.
I still have a fondness for 3.5E even though it requires too much effort to run (IMO/YMMV). I've been running and playing D&D for 39 years and, as much as 4E is my favourite edition by a wide margin, the most fun I have had with D&D, and the longest-running campaigns, was with 3.5E. It just needed a better revision (and not the minor, ineffectual changes of Pathfinder 1E) and functional electronic tools.